This is a Impale Cyclone build that can also be played as Bladestorm. It also works with every duelist/marauder ascendancy apart from Chieftain. It can also be played with 2handed or other weapon types with a few changes on the skill tree.

It also allows for some pretty cost efficient options, aswell as being viable with low investment and has infinite room to improve damage and survivability.

This was my league starter in Legion and I killed Uber Elder on my first try deathless, with less than 1 exalt invested in the build. To simulate this I bought gear for 100c and added the footage for it in Videos.

3.8 changes

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Damage nerf: The flat damage from Cyclone gem got nerfed by 50% and this totals out to 11% damage nerf for this build in particular.

Aoe nerf: Because of the new scaling we go from 42 to 36 radius while in sand stance. This is EXTREMELY minor. You wont even notice it has been nerfed.

Slayer nerf: Overwhelm went from 8% to 7.5% base crit and means roughly a 3-4% damage loss. Bane of Legends got both attack speed and movement speed nerfed from 20% to 10%. Very minor nerfs.

Minus mana cost nerf: They split channeling skills into its own category meaning we either need to use the fossil mod on chest or use a temple ring with the Xopec's mod.

Pulverise Nerf/Buff: You might think this is a nerf since the AoE gets nerfed, but then you look at the 14% more damage we now get from this gem. What's the point of swapping it out on bosses anymore?

Despite changes to the core of this build, it actually functions and builds exactly the same. The only change on the skill tree is they moved 1 Impale cluster but it still requires the same amount of points as before.

Pros and Cons

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Pros+ This build can achieve stupid levels of damage.+ League start and SSF viable.+ No required items.+ Very fast clearspeed.+ Tackles end game easily on a low budget.+ Has lots of room for min/max.

Cons:- While our Cyclone area is very big, we are still playing Melee wich is dangerous at time.- Meta build means some end game items can be expensive.- Cyclone can sometimes cause desync.

Skill Tree+POB

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With my gear I've achieved 20mil ethical Shaper DPS in Legion. Meaning this POB doesnt tick any unrealistic boxes. The cheap version has around 6mil.

By vendoring a white sword, a blue or rare rustic sash and 1 blacksmith whetstone will give you %physical damage. After this you can either craft attack speed on it or use a regal orb and craft flat phys damage.

Starting Gear lvl 1-10

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Early Game lvl 10-30

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Mid Game lvl 30-43

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Optional Weapons

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Rigwald's Charge is very strong and is useful despite being a 2hand.

Oni-Goroshi is most likely the fastest and strongest weapon to level with so if you can afford one this is the best option.

Skill Gems

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We start levelling with Perforate linked with Chance to Bleed, Maim and Added Fire. When you hit level 4 you want to pick up both Steelskin and Blood & Sand.

You get Dash at level 4 and its pretty good. You can play with it all the way to end game if you want or swap to Leap Slam at level 10.

At level 16 you want to get Flesh & Stone and link it with Maim. Replace Maim on your Perforate with Melee Phys when you hit level 18. Link Faster Attacks with your Dash or Leap Slam.

At level 28 you can swap to Cyclone or keep levelling with Perforate. Either add Fortify as your 5th link or replace Chance to Bleed when you hit level 31.

At around level 50 is where we'll want to swap to pure physical so make sure you have the Impale nodes on the skill tree. If you have a 6link at this point it should be Cyclone-Impale-Brutality-Fortify-Melee Phys-Rage.
We also start using both Pride and Dread Banner for Impale and remove the Maim from your Flesh & Stone.

Mana is pretty tight at this point so if you dont already have a rare ring with -mana cost you can use a cheap Praxis ring.

At this point onwards you have the base of the skill gems. For further information please refer to the Skill Gem section.

Impale is a debuff you apply to the target that stores 10% of the damage you dealt in the previous hit and ignores all defensive mechanics the target has.

Impale stacks up to 5 baseline giving you a 50% MORE damage multiplier.
You can increase this to 7 by either using Champions ascendancy node "Master of Metal" or by using a Watcher's Eye with the mod "Impales you inflict last 2 additional hits while using Pride".

With just Impale Support, Dread Banner, and the 2 skill tree clusters we get a damage multiplier of 104%.

Mana Cost Reduction

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You need the stat "- to total mana cost of skills". Atleast -9 in order for Cyclone to cost 0 mana but it can work with a lower number aswell.

The sources for this is Elreons signature crafted mod, rings with the Incursion mod Xopec or from a fossil crafted body armour using Serrated Fossils. Because of the change in 3.8 we can no longer rely on 1 craft on the ring.

1h vs 2h

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2h has a few strong elder mods like 7-link Fortify, double damage and a few others. It also has the benefit of using 2 6 links or just a body armour with really good stats without needing to link it such as a Kaom's Heart. It also looks pretty damn cool.

Dual Wield on the other hand gets a few nice perks. By just using 2 1handers you get 10% MORE attack speed, 20% MORE attack physical damage and 15% additional block chance. In addition to that 1h can also use a 7-link in the form of a fossil crafted body armour with the mod "socketed gems are supported by level 1 maim".

Another small perk of 1h is that foils have the biggest base weapon range in the game, competing with Starforge and Atziri's Disfavour as the number 1.

Rampage

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We get Rampage in this build while mapping through the 2h Axe Sinvicta's Mettle. We use this in weapon swap so you just swap to it, get 1 kill, then swap back to your main weapon/s.

Gear

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Cheap Version

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Expensive Version

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Detailed Gearing

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Weapons

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Paradoxica is incredibly cost efficient while delivering high end damage.

It's equivalent to a rare jewelled foil with about 480 pDPS but they cost about 20 ex compared to a Paradoxica that cost around 3-4 ex. Because of the low attack speed it wont feel as smooth when mapping, but your damage will go through the roof.

IMPORTANT: Because of how Paradoxica work, it will show less in-game tooltip because it doesnt calculate the double damage mod but its certainly an incredibly strong weapon.

As a budget option you can use a Scaeva in your main hand and a decent rolled rare foil in your off-hand. For the Scaeva you want 3 green sockets for the crit multi.

Helmet

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Rare Helm with life and resists.

Fossil crafted helm with physical damage is something to strive for. Until then you can use a Starkonja.

Devoto's Devotion is THE best helmet for clearspeed but it lacks in damage and survivability compared to the 2 previously mentioned helmets. In my personal opinion, it is not worth the cost to buy a Devoto.

As you can see the dps difference isnt huge between the enchants so just get wichever one is the cheapest.

The dps numbers are based off my current gear that you can find in the POB.

Body Armour

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Rare body armour with life and resists.

Fossil crafted body can get stats like 7-link Maim and minus mana cost. With an elder body you can also get base crit wich is very strong.

You dont need an astral plate, nor do you need an elder body. On league start I used a normal rare 6-link fossil crafted with Serrated and Pristine.

Gloves

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Rare gloves with life and resists. Spiked gloves is the best base.

If you dont need resist you can get flat phys and/or attack speed. There are also a lot of veiled damage mods you can craft.

Boots

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Rare boots with life and movement speed, resist if you can get it.

If you dont need resists you can craft attributes, damage during soul gain prevention or cannot be frozen.

Amulet

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Rare amulet with life and resist.

This is a good slot to squeeze damage with flat phys to attacks and/or crit multi aswell as other veiled damage mods.

Rings

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Rare ring with life and resists.

If you dont have minus mana cost on body you want -3 to channeling cost on both rings and amulet in order to have 0 mana cost on Cyclone. Just 2x mods for -6 works or Xopec's mod on 1 ring for -8 works fine aswell.

As an endgame option you can get a shaped ring with Assassin's Mark on hit.

Belt

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Rare belt with life and resist.

You can craft attributes or %increased damage if you dont need resists.

End game option would be a fossil crafted Stygian Vise with physical damage.

Stats on the jewel should be life and either attack speed, global crit multi or physical damage to attacks.

Flasks

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The flasks are pretty much locked in place. Not many flasks can compare with this setup. The mod "of the Order" is very good on a Diamond Flask but its pretty hard to get.

The only thing I'd change in this setup is to have 1 Warding flask instead of the 2 Heat flasks listed.

Best mods for rare jewels are life% and physical damage, attack speed or crit multi.

The Brutal Restraint jewel is only worth getting if you can get more benefit that just a regular jewel. Lethal Pride jewels can also be pretty good.

The best mod for a Watcher's Eye is 2 additional hits with Impale though it's quite expensive. Most of the Pride and Precision mods are good so if you cant afford a 2 stack Impale then just get another mod for either of the 2 auras.

Skill Gems

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Cyclone

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The main single target will be Cyclone, Impale, Fortify, Brutality, Rage and Melee Physical damage.

You swap in Pulverise instead of Melee Phys while mapping. Rage Support stacks with Berserkers rage generation.

These 2 gems are both better than Increased Melee Phys but they require more Intelligence than we can easily fit on the tree. If you want to use them you can get some 30+ int nodes on tree aswell as some attributes on gear.

Warchief

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Completely optional link, however it does give us MORE damage when its up and it does respectable damage on its own. I only use this for bosses like uber elder or t16 guardians.

Cast when damage taken

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Yet again, optional link. It doesnt do a whole lot with the changes to Immortal Call so you can skip this and 4link leap slam or use a manual Immortal Call, Steelskin or Vaal Molten Shell. You can use whatever curse you want. Enfeeble, Assassin's Mark, Warlord's Mark and Vulnerability are all good.

Leap Slam

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Either Leap Slam or Whirling Blades. Blood magic is needed given we reserve almost all of our mana. If you want to 4 link this you can use Faster Attacks aswell.

Auras

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These are the best auras you can get for a balanced setup.

Flesh and Stone is primarily for the defensive utility while in sand stance so if you rather get some extra damage then Herald of Purity is a good choice. You can also skip that aura and just level up precision instead if you have accuracy issues.

If you encounter mana issues, link Pride, Flesh and Stone and either Dread Banner or Blood and Sand with an Enlighten.

Utility

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Blood Rage is very strong, both for mapping and bosses since it gives frenzy charges on kill, but more importantly attack speed. If you want you can rely on this to get your life leech cap and save a few points on the tree.

Portal is just because I'm lazy, if you have portal scrolls you can use blood magic here aswell so none of your skills cost mana.

Berserk is a very strong gem but I wouldnt use it on other classes than Berserker simply because it takes to long time to build the rage back up again.

Pantheon

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Major: Soul of Lunaris for everything in the game.

Minor: Soul of Shakari because I hate spiders. They do a lot of chaos damage and chaos resistance cost more to invest in than a simple Pantheon

Honorable mention: Soul of Ralakesh for maim/blind immunity and Soul of Garukhan for movement speed while mapping.

Changelog

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Jul 15, 2019: Added videos.

Jul 16, 2019: Optimized skill tree and POB.

Jul 18, 2019: Video for Bladestorm.

Aug 02, 2019: Added a levelling section with POB.

Aug 04, 2019: Fixed POB with current gear for both expensive and cheap version aswell as adding ascendancy priority. Expanded levelling section.

Very nice and detailed guide.
Even tho I started as 2h axe cyclone slayer and I'm almost done with the league and its challenges,I'd love to try the 1h variation with a different ascendancy because,hell,I love spinning around and obliterating stuff.
So the question is,besides slayer which is undisputedly the king of this league,which other of the 4 ascendancies you posted will be close to it?

Very nice and detailed guide.
Even tho I started as 2h axe cyclone slayer and I'm almost done with the league and its challenges,I'd love to try the 1h variation with a different ascendancy because,hell,I love spinning around and obliterating stuff.
So the question is,besides slayer which is undisputedly the king of this league,which other of the 4 ascendancies you posted will be close to it?

Thank you!

When it comes to damage Champion is without a doubt the best, they are even better than Slayer aswell because of the Impale scaling. When it comes to mapping both Berserker and Gladiator gets very high attack and movement speed so they map very fast.

Juggernaut is functional aswell but it simply lacks damage, however they are by far the tankiest and easiest to play.

If I personally had to make a second choice to Slayer I'd pick Berserker just because of the insane attack speed they get.

Leveled as a Berserker and I have to say you're able to achieve really high DPS numbers with low to medium investment,the more you spend tho,the more this build really starts to shine both in map clearspeed and single target damage.

A couple of things tho that we need to take in consideration:

A)Taking Aspect of Carnage instead of Blitz highly boosts our dps and it's definitely better to assign it despite the damage taken which isn't a great amount anyway

B)We have to ditch Rage support gem (useless anyway since we are already generating rage thanks to the Crave the Slaughter node of our ascendancy) for the sake of Melee physical damage,another huge boost dps improvement.

As for single target,swapping Pulverize to Conc.effect (or Infuse channeling if you want to be more tanky) is the best option dps wise,you have to solve the intelligence problem tho.
Personally I have assigned an int. node from the skill tree in addition to some intelligence I already have on my gear,it's clearly worthy because of the high DPS benefits.

Also the usage of berserk skill improves clear speed/dps while mapping and especially while doing 5-way legion runs.

I have to mention tho that using a devoto with cyclone/blood rage att.speed enchant is QoL since movement speed makes this build to reach its peak,yet it might be unaffordable for many people as OP also stated.

Leveled as a Berserker and I have to say you're able to achieve really high DPS numbers with low to medium investment,the more you spend tho,the more this build really starts to shine both in map clearspeed and single target damage.

A couple of things tho that we need to take in consideration:

A)Taking Aspect of Carnage instead of Blitz highly boosts our dps and it's definitely better to assign it despite the damage taken which isn't a great amount anyway

B)We have to ditch Rage support gem (useless anyway since we are already generating rage thanks to the Crave the Slaughter node of our ascendancy) for the sake of Melee physical damage,another huge boost dps improvement.

As for single target,swapping Pulverize to Conc.effect (or Infuse channeling if you want to be more tanky) is the best option dps wise,you have to solve the intelligence problem tho.
Personally I have assigned an int. node from the skill tree in addition to some intelligence I already have on my gear,it's clearly worthy because of the high DPS benefits.

Also the usage of berserk skill improves clear speed/dps while mapping and especially while doing 5-way legion runs.

I have to mention tho that using a devoto with cyclone/blood rage att.speed enchant is QoL since movement speed makes this build to reach its peak,yet it might be unaffordable for many people as OP also stated.

Here's my PoB for further suggestions/questions etc:

https://pastebin.com/4gNFnkck

Hey and thanks for the feedback. I do agree with you on some points and I'll edit the guide to include more options for support gems.

Berserk being left out was an overlook on my behalf so I'll make sure to add this as an option for Berserker only.

The reason I have Rage support listed for every ascendancy is because flat physical damage scales incredibly well for one handed, not so much for two handed. It also stacks with Berserkers rage generation giving you a much faster build up. If you check Rage support in POB you'll see that it gives a ton of damage.

Some of the options you have listed simply dont allign with how I personally like to play the game, like taking Conc Effect over Infused Channeling as a DPS option since it makes your AoE considerably smaller, introducing a more dangerous playstyle where you have to be very close.

For me personally, Aspect of Carnage is simply overkill because you dont need that much raw damage, I'd rather have nodes like Blitz that gives crazy attack speed for fast mapping and my other option would be Pain Reaver because it gives some respectable attack speed in addition to saving points on tree with life/mana leech.

And finally with the Devoto's Devotion. Yes it is a good helmet, especially so for faster clearspeed. My point is simply that the clearspeed from a Devoto does not reflect the cost compared to fossil crafted rares or a Starkonja. It is THE best helmet for clearspeed but that's about it. For damage and survivability it will always lack compared to the 2 previously mentioned helmets.